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Fantasy worlds are filled with people who ride around on all kinds of stuff, but none is more immediately iconic than that of the Dragon Rider. Every fantasy world has warriors who ride around on dragons.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Dragon Lancer are proficient with the lances and with shields (except tower shields). They gain no proficiency with armors or other weapons.

Dragon Mount: A Dragon Lancer gains a dragon as a mount. A level appropriate Dragon is 2 levels lower than the Dragon Lancer's character level. If the dragon is ever slain or leaves the service of the dragon lancer because of negligence or cruel treatment, the dragon lancer loses all class abilities and he cannot gain the service of another dragon mount for one year. In addition, he must also atone for his actions before he can gain another mount, otherwise dragons are always considered hostile against him and his associates as long as he exists.

Dragon Skills: The special skills of her Dragon Mount's race are class skills for her, and she gains a +3 bonus on them (Balance and Climb for White, Hide and Swim for Black, Bluff and Listen for Blue, Survival and Diplomacy for Green, Sense Motive and Appraise for Red).

Dragon Armor: A Dragon Lancer can fashion armor and shield for herself from the discarded scales of her mount. This is appropriate Dragonscale equipment that does not require the skinning of a live Dragon. While the Dragon Lancer is donned in the armor and/or shield and is mounted, the Dragonscale equipment has an enhancement bonus equal to one third of her character level (Maximum +5 enhancement).

Dragon Immunities (Ex): At 3rd level, a Dragon Lancer gains immunity to her Dragon Mount's breath weapon. Also she gains immunity to paralysis and aging.

Dragon Fighting (Ex): A 4th level Dragon Lancer knows the tricks of fighting with and against Dragons. Both the Dragon Lancer and her mount have the Edge for any attack they make against a Dragon. Also, any attack she makes against a Dragon inflict an extra 2d6 of damage.

Dragon Senses (Ex): A 4th level Dragon Lancer has Blindsight out to 30', as well as Darkvision out to 60' and Low-light Vision.

Unstoppable Force (Ex): At 5th level, as part of a charge a Dragon Lancer may ride her mount straight through objects that obstruct her path without slowing down. When attempting this maneuver against solid objects, for every 5ft of material you attempt to crash through, roll a Strength DC of 10 + hardness of the material. For every 5ft of material past the first, the DC increases by 5. Each roll you succeed on, means you have utterly destroyed that portion of material, leaving a hole depending on your size. If you fail, your movement stops immediately and you take falling damage equal to the total distance you charged. Magical objects have a saving throw versus this equal to 10 + 1/2 character level + con modifier. This can cause structural collapse.

If a Dragon Lancer performs this maneuver versus a force effect, such as a Wall of Force, he must instead roll a Strength DC 10 + spell level + relevant spellcasting modifier. If he succeeds, he has completely destroyed the force effect. If you fail, your movement stops immediately and you take falling damage equal to the total distance you charged.

First of all, we know that the Dragons in the Monster Manual make you sad. They make us sad too. Not just because they are all color coded by philosophy and that's really dumb, but also because Dragons are way too small. Seriously, the proper challenge for most adventurers is a Dragon the size of my dog, and you just can't ride around on those things at all. Most characters want to ride around on a dragon that is at least two sizes larger than they are, and under the normal rules that's just not available until epic levels (by which time you no longer care).

Naturally of course, complete rules for making a Dragon that is scalable and a decent challenge while being substantially larger than my cat will be introduced in the Tome of Tiamat. But since we know that won't be out for a while, let's throw in a preview mount for Vayn to have when she's an 11th level character: